Overreacting?

Overreaction

 

I have to relate a humorous story to everyone.  This past weekend I volunteered at one of the best races in my opinion, the Nike’s Women’s Marathon.  This is an incredibly emotional race for the runners, many of whom are either survivors or running in memory of a loved one they have lost to Leukemia or Lymphoma.   We treated women at the mile 9 marker who were hurting in both knees, or who rolled an ankle and yet continued and shockingly finished the marathon.  That takes enormous mental fortitude and I have no shortage of respect for them.

 

But this story relates to a different aspect, it would be for the volunteers.  I volunteer with the Red Cross to provide medical support for major events like this throughout the Bay Area.  In the city specifically many residents do not have cars and at 3am when we begin to assemble there is not a ton of mass transit.  I was asked by the Red Cross employees if I could pick up a single person initially and bring them with me, considering they were only 3 blocks away.  No problem.  Two days before the race they ask if I can pick up a second person on the opposite end of town, they know it’s far but they are desperate.  Ok, again no problem.  Then the day before a third person about halfway between the two.  Finally ok.  I send an email to all three and let them know approximate times.  Now apparently in the flurry of emails something got confused and I picked up three but there was apparently a fourth request that got mixed in.  It exasperated the problem when I swapped a phone number and an address of two people.  Unfortunately instead of apparently 4 people, only three were picked up.  A simply mistake, these things happen.  Below is an exact copy of the email I received late, I will leave it to you to decide if he overreacted (keeping in mind we are all volunteers here).

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Jeff.Webster@SFSailing.com [mailto:Jeff.Webster@att.net]

Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 9:19 AM

To: XXXX

Cc: Matthew Stein

 

Subject: FW: RE: Nike

This guy said he'd be only a minute or two late, twenty minutes later, I called and he was still in the Haight. First I think that is really rude to not be on time, 2nd if I had known he wasn't man enough to do the job right I would not have accepted his offer.

 

My phone never rang, sorry to all (like the effected runners and you Emily and Adrienne who put time and effort into careful organizing) because this person is too weak to know how to tell time. This person obviously has a real manhood problem.

 

--

Jeff.Webster@SFSailing.com

(415) 922-6969

KC9DPP

Buy (RED)

 

Anyone want to sail down a river in the rain? Oh we do!

The weather is absolutely gorgeous upon landing in saigon, where are all the storms the news was talking of?  Surely they must have been exagerating.  In that case why don't we book a two day trip down the Makong river and get the most out of our trip here.  Ignore the fact we haven't slept a full night sleep in several days and I have managed to catch a common cold in the middle of this humid and hot environment.  One more adventure, let's go for it!

We book the tour around 3pm and by 6pm when we go out for dinner it is absolutely pouring.  Thunder and lightening abound.  A hasty decision is made to eat inside the hotel.  But the nexy day appears to have seen the last of the bad weather and is sunny and bright.  We embark on a four hour car ride with the most politically charged tour guide we have run across yet.  We are not sure if we can believe all of his conspiracy theories but apparently he spent four years in a political reeducation camp in his twenties since je decided to go AWOL from the army.  Suffice to say he yielded many interesting stories of corruption inside the government, some of which might actually be true.

We just arrive at the boat dock and we see a huge front coming in, sure enough about ten feet from the dock the skies let loose and don't stop the entire day.  From motorized boat, to rowboat, mini-bus and even ferry we were on all kinds of fun transportation today. 

The highlight of the day?  While on a fifteen minute ferry ride I received a marriage proposal from an adorable 22 year old local girl.  Not surprisingly westerners are fairly prized catches so even a bloke like me should be able to get a date.  Alas I turned her down to get back into our mini-bus and over to the hotel.

Otherwise the day with small excursions to the shore to visit a brick factory, a cocunut candy factory and finally rice cake factory.  Truly sanitary conditions (umm sure) and yet ISO 9001 certified, go figure. 

At this point it is absolutely storming at the hotel so just chilling to see what we are going to do tomorrow.

Take care

There is a bit of rain over here

Our trip was going quite well until there came a little bit of rain.  Well maybe more than a bit, a typhoon landed upon both the philipines and vietnam killing over 200 in philipines and well over 100 here in vietnam.  Thankfully up north in Sapa we were relatively immune to the storm with very little rain hitting us, however with its impending arrival up north there was a large push of people to get into the overnight trains down south.  Now if you have never felt like a refugee I highly recommend the experience.  Several hundred travelers cram into a small train terminal trying to board the overnight train to Hanoi.  Keep in mind the door to the trains is chained shut but this does not stop locals from pushing their way to the front only to encounter an obstacle of a chain and a police officer.  This does not stop then from rattling the door and screaming at the police officer, to no avail.  Almost two hours we wait in 90 degree heat with people continuing to push from behind until finally they open the doors and it was as if Noah's ark's doors opened.  A veritable stampede of people, keep in mind all berths are preassigned.  Thankfully our coach conductor is a tough 100 year old cranky officer who is incredibly strict keeping poachers away from our berths and literally locks us in the room to protect our berths.  Even more feelings of safety arises when we observe the conductor placing padlocks on all the outside doors right before leaving, let's hope no accidents ever hit this train station.

We are so exhausted at this point we collapse and sleep the entire ride back down south only to be woken up by rattling at the door at the crazy hour of 5:30.  Now here is the question what do we do for the remainder of our trip with this typhoon in the middle of the country.  Unfortunately we had to cancel our flight to Hua since that airport is completely closed, so alas we had to spend the day shopping.  A terrible tragedy that we endured with grace and ponosh.

During shopping we were at a random stall negotiating for some pictures when a very drunk male grabbed my father and started screaming in his face.  Three police officers were within 5ft and did absolutely nothing.  Finally one of the other shop owners came and moved the drunk away.  It certainly caught us off guard.  The rest of the day passed without incident with some great shopping and one lovely massage for myself. 

Oh yes maybe I should elaborate on this experience.  I asked at the front desk for a reasonable place to get a massage.  He looks at me with raised eyebrows and asked just for me or with my family.  When I answer just for me he gives me a knowing look until I finally get clear just looking for normal massage.  I don't think he believes me but directs me to a local place.  For the low low fee of $10 (compared to around $60 in states) I get a very interesting 75 minute Vietnamese massage.  The most memorable was the butt massage, yes we are talking kneeded, shaken and rotated.  It took all my self control not to laugh.  All of those who aredying to ask not even a question of anything naught ever arose, but I did feel great afterwards.

The next day a freakishly early flight to saigon and decision time based on weather now that we had to change our itinerary.    

A crazy adventure into the wild outdoors

Although one might feel that the trip to the perfume pagoda was an intrepid traveler's dream (see previous entry) that was nothing compared to what we had in store next.

It began with a nice calm day of traversing through Hanoi to see local sites.  Begining with the museum of ethnicities on the outskirts of town.  Remarkable that Vietnam is actually comprised of 54 different and distinct etnicities.  This museum was dedicated to showing and preserving some of the traditions that are rapidly disintegrating in major cities or as ethnicities slowly get wiped out through inter-marriage etc.  One tribe believed that women are the sources of all pain and thus if someone was to get sick the priest would perform a ritual where they would have enlarged phallic symbols tied around their waist (for all women are of course afraid of phallics) and chase the women around the hall.  It was quite interesting to actual watch on tvs throughout the museum the actual ceremonys.  I wonder how many ceremonies we will never get to see of our native american's since many have long since lost critical mass to continue their deepest traditions.

The back of the museum actually held replicas of some of the different ethnicity's huts and homes so that one could truly experience what they must live like.  I thoght this was as close as we would get...I was wrong.

After the museum and a much needed to bit to eat we stopped by the main pagoda in the city.  Although not incredibly well maintained it is still the spiritual center of the city and even in a brief amount of time we were there we saw several people from as you as mid twenties to fifties making offerings to budhah with distinct wishes.  Still very much an active part of many of their lives.

The rest of the afternoon passed a blur of walking around street vendors, some ice cream in a coffee shop, watching all the schools letting out and the kid streaming out to an army of waiting relatives on their scooters.  But precisely at 830pm the care free aspect of day rapidly changed into serious focus.

A chaotic series of events preceded our boardingof our overnight express to Sapa.  Our tour companu had some 'miss communications' but with minutes to spare we were safely stowed on our hard sleeper cabin.  What does this mean?  On any type of transportation paticularly trains there is multiple classes of service, due to popular demand the only bunks we could get for this 10 hour train ride were in the back of the train in a cabin with 6 bunks (3 high).  Each bunch contains the thinnest of pads, think sheet rather than pad and a blanket.  Even more exciting we apparently took the bunks in the crew quarter for twice throught the evening a cell phone would ring and a couple of staff members would wake up, remove themselves from the bunks and are quickly replaced by two others who promptly fall sleep. 

I do not think between the shuddering of the train and curves through the mountains any of us got a ton of sleep, however around 5:30 when the sun rose the sites see through the train were quite impressive.  Jumping off the train at 7am, we quickly hopped a mini- bus which took us through the mountains for an hour and a half long drive before arriving at Sapa.  Now Sapa is one of the closest cities to China frm Vietnem.  It is in the middle of the mountains and still farmed by many of those same ethnic minorities we saw in the museum.  The next three days we would be interacting and walking among these groups as we see how they survive in these rugged turreins.

Just keep walking!

Upon arriving in Sapa we have a nice hot breakfast in our hotel where we will not be staying until two night hence (to be explained later).  First this breakfast bears mentioning.  They had hot fresh banana pancakes with either pur honey or rich chocolate poured on top.  After lots of fried rice and noodles for breakfast, pancakes were heavenly.  By the way highly recommend trying pancakes with honey if you ever get the chance.  A quick shower was then very much in the plans and then repacking from large suitcases to smaller overnight bags we will carry. 

Yes that os right we are about to spend the next two days backpacking through the mountains getting very close to the land.  With backpacks and hiking boots ready we set off with our guide on our 17 km hike into the mountains. 

Without going through all the hills and streams of our journey I will simply relate the highlights from the 6 hour hike (keep in mind we are on vacation).  Along the road we were constantly approached by children and old women in native dress all trying to sell small homemade trinkets, bracelots or bags to these strange and wealthy hikers.  The kids all speak very good English asking about where we are from, our families and for me if I was married, in fact everyone is very interested how old everyone is.  I did not think much of this from the older kids until we ran across a white worker in the fields drenched in sweat and beating rice stalks to separate the rice.  Asking our guide if this tourist was just experiencing local life, we find out he was a tourist three months ago, ended up meeting a local girl whom he married and has worked in the fields ever since.  Note to self, I am now married with many kids at home, I am not equiped to work in fields out here.

Interestingly enough their houses or huts in the middle of fields on the side of the mountain usually have some type of generator for basic lighting, and oh yeah satellite tv.  Yes you read right they like to know what is going on and thus watch CNN, BBC and don't forget HBO and MTV.  This area is full of surprises.  A roof made of mud or in some cases just a tarp with satellite television.

Our climb was relatively easy in that there was no real rock climbing but we were all drenched in sweat, red in the face and exhuasted by the time we got to our homestay around 3:30.  What this is is an opportunity to sleep with the natives in a native style house.  Oh yes, not only do we get to take pictures of the homes on the trek or in the museum we now get to experience it first hand.  We join with 2 Korean girls, 1 Japanese girl, 3 Polish trekers and oursleves inside one fairly decent size hut.  This hut has two stories, all tourists on the second floor please.  Each bed consisted on a pad, two small throw pillows and an incredibly heavy but soft blanket all covered by a mosquito netting.  Each 'bed' was right next to each other 5 to a side all surrounding a central opening from the first floor.  It was very cozy and remarkably comfortable.

It did not take us more than a few minutes to change from our dusty clothes into swimsuits and jump straight into the river a short way away.  Ok maybe jump is not quite accurate, we gingerely waded in considering it was about the temperature of ice water in a restaurant.  (yes mom you get credit for going all the way in, crazy as it was to the rest of us). 

We soon join the rest of the groups out in the front yard around small card tables relating experiences and past trips in a mixture of languages.  Thankfully almost everyone spoke decent english since unlike all others it is the only language my family speaks (darn us arrogant americans) :-).  Soon the cold beers appear and is later followed by shots of 'heavy water' otherwise known as a very rough and burning form of sake.  Suffice to say a few hours later none of us were feeling any pain from the hike.  A highlight was being able to see stars in the night sky without the light pollution from cities.

A reasonable hike back to civilization

Considering the late hour of our revelry the night before we were up at the break of dawn, could it possibly have anything to do with babies waking up and crying below our floor?  While waiting for our tour guides to make us breakfast we entertained ourselves teaching each other local games raning from. Drawn dot game from the Koreans to a crazy card game from the Polish.  I would like to admit at this point I lost everytime in the strategic dot game but won a few times at the card game (lucky in cards, unlucky in love?).  We were so wrapped up in our card game when breakfast came we continued for another 20 minutes until someone finally won, then we pounced on our pancakes and pears. 

Before we know it we are thanking the father of the family and pushing on for another 12 km through the jungle.  Yes this time we begin to leave the rice patties and enter into the bamboo forest and other areas with deeper foliage.  At one point our guide stops us suddenly (always difficult when in the middle of jumping rocks in a huge mud puddle) and starts clapping loudly.  Apparently very large snake in front of us, as my family would say, oh guuuud!  We survived happily. 

Over waterfalls and through streams, into another locals home to see how they live (a huge paradox between mud hut with indoor fire cooking with stereo and television) and finally to a resting place where we can have lunch.  Who do we end up meeting, but our friends from last night.  It takes us no more than 5 minutes of greetings before out comes the playing cards and it is on!

More hiking afterwards (you think tiring to read about it, try being a soft American), but finally at long last our road where we are met by a jeep to take us finally to our hotel.  Looking back from the top of a ridge we can see the distances we hiked and one can not help but be impressed with the distances we can move when motivated for it never seems as long when you are on the trail.  I guess this is why everyone tells you to stand back and look at big picture?

Finally back at hotel now where we each happily collapsed in our beds after a much needed hot shower!  Until next time.